Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Vienna, September 16 – Like the assassins of centuries ago, anti-Russian militants in the North Caucasus today are using drugs to create “zombified” suicide bombers, according to a Moscow newspaper, a charge that will discredit the militants, undermine calls for negotiations with them, and spark new fears about people from that region among Russians at large. In an article entitled “Robots of Death” in today’s “Trud,” Elena Yuryeva says that “North Caucasian schools for militants have begun to attract drug specialists [from Middle Eastern countries] for the preparation of shahid suicide bombers,” a practice that recalls the original assassins (www.trud.ru/article/2009/09/16/roboty_smerti.html/print/). Before the militants, who Yuryeva stresses are no longer motivated by ethnic or religious considerations are sent on a suicide mission, they are given drugs by their “bandit” leaders “after which it is impossible to stop or persuade them not to go ahead” and attack their targets even at the cost of their lives. According to the “Trud” journalist, “suicide bomber schools” in various parts of the North Caucasus have trained 30 such people already, of whom 13 have already been killed, either in the course of attacks in which they lost their lives or because they “have been liquidated by the forces of the special services.” But that still leaves a large number out there, Yuryeva notes, and “the remaining suicide bombers now can be anywhere in the North Caucasus.” Moreover, she says, “part of them have received an order to go to Moscow or other major Russian cities” and carry out their deadly attacks.Kaloy Akhilgov, press secretary to Ingushetia President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, told Yuryeva that “we have information that the suicide bombers before setting out on a mission take psychotropic medicines and drugs” and that this process is conducted by “qualified foreign specialists.”The “Trud” journalist says that experts in the field such as Leonid Gedko of the CIS Narcotics Control Center “have confirmed that in reality it is easiest to transform a person into a ‘living bomb’ with the help of specially selected medical preparations” than it is to rely on religious or ethnic “fanaticism” as was the case earlier. As Takhir Bazarov, a professor of social psychology at Moscow State University, put it, “the goals which the instructors of the diversion schools pursue consists in the stupefaction of the consciousness of their pupils. This can be achieved with instruction in religious intolerance but with the help of narcotics, this process takes place much faster.”Drawing on the comments of the expert community, Yuryeva says that such drug-addled suicide bombers typically display one or more of the following characteristics: glassy eyes, dilated pupils, unstable walking, semi-consciousness, and frequent thirst – a list that will undoubtedly lead some to mistakenly identify others in their midst as terrorists.But Leonid Gedko told “Trud” that “if one speaks about the characteristics of a shahid, then one must remember that he will seek to remain unnoticed even in a crowd. He will try to dress modestly and behave like everyone else. Therefore,” he said, “such people usually do not attract much attention.” But if “such people” do not attract much attention, articles like the one in “Trud” certainly will, not only providing yet another justification for the view of Vladimir Putin and others in Moscow that the only thing Russia can do with the militants is kill them and for the view of many ordinary Russians that “people of Caucasus nationality” represent a threat. Given tensions about migrants from that region in major Russian cities, tensions that have prompted populist officials like Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to demand deep cuts in the number of migrants allowed and led to the organization of often violent anti-migrant groups, that attention could lead to even bigger problems than the one Yuryeva has described.

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About Me

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series. Prior to joining the faculty there in 2004, he served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and religious issues and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former Soviet space. Trained at Miami University in Ohio and the University of Chicago, he has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence and the withdrawal of Russian forces from those formerly occupied lands. Mr. Goble can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com